Phillies Reaching Yankees Status?

My buddy Matt Gelb wrote a very solid piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a new stream of revenue coming for the Philadelphia Phillies. They sell out games, they sell merchandise, they sell beers, they sell pieces of grass and bags of dirt. The Phillies are doing whatever they can to bring in revenue, to keep the team playing at a high level, and to keep that vicious cycle in constant motion. Soon, they may not have to try so hard.

Gelb notes the fact that the Phillies TV contract with Comcast SportsNet will be expiring in a few seasons, so the team is counting down the days until that new billion-dollar deal has fresh ink on it.

Does that mean the Phillies will reach higher as a way to keep guys like Cole Hamels around? And with the possibility of a new TV deal soon, will it put the Phillies on par with the Yankees?

Recommended for you

0 Comments

No, it seems that they still have some idea of fiscal responsibility which the Yanks have never cared about. If they are able to have their own network like YES or NESN for the Red Sox, that would free up a lot more revenue as they would not have to share said revenue with Comcast. And that is how the Yanks and Sox are able to exceed the luxury tax every year without concern!

Um, the Phillies really haven’t been fiscally responsible in the past few years. They’re outspending the nearest NL team by something like $50 million dollars. They’ve thrown around absolutely huge contracts free agents (Lee, Papelbon) and to their own players (Howard) and have repeatedly dumped young, cost-controlled players for expensive veterans (Pence, Oswalt, Lee trades).

The Phils don’t have the revenue that NY or Bos have because of their proprietary networks, but they are basically as free-spending a team as you can be without one.

The Phillies have become what we once loathed. And that’s ok, because it was their Continued Success™ that was so loathsome. If they had been a high-spending team that continually sucked nobody would have cared.

Tom, from Gelb’s article it doesn’t seem like the TV Network is something they are digging into. Seems like too much work on their end. Plus, it would have to be done in accordance with Comcast, who basically owns Philadelphia. It might not make sense for them to do it. But who knows.

I have FIOS and can confirm – I do have CSN and Vs. (Or is it called NBC sports now?). One channel missing is TCN – The Comcast Network. Looking at the channels that the spring training game are on, I’m glad I can at least check out the weekend spring training games.

So that means that Phils games get bumped from CSN when the Flyers and Sixers play, or are in the playoffs, and apparently I don’t get to see most of the spring training games. As I said a week or so ago, for that reason I’m really hoping the Sixers completely collapse.

I’ll watch Flyers playoff hockey over regular season baseball, but I’d rather watch crickets having sex than watch a minute of a basketball game. GET OFF MY TEEVEE YOU STUPID SIXERS. Or at least put their dumb asses on CN8.

Too bad you feel that way, bro. Sixers are fun to watch right now….real exciting… and they are showing what it means to play as a TEAM. But whatever….wish them to collapse if you want.. real fine fan you are.

Exciting is subjective. I’ll never find hoopies exciting. That’s just the way it is.

I’m a great fan, because I want to see more of the teams I like and support. That’s, you know, the whole point of being a fan of a team. I’m not a fan of any basketball teams so I wouldn’t care if they folded the entire league. So…I guess I wouldn’t make a good basketball fan, but I’m a terrible fan of every sports team I don’t follow, just like everyone else.

What, you don’t like the Nippon Ham Fighters?! Boo, what a bad fan you are!

I get it. You don’t like basketball….and that’s cool. But, being a Philly guy, living in the area for most of my life……I root for ALL the sports teams…even if I’m a big fan of that sport or not. Granted, the Phillies are #1 in my book and by a large margin. But I also follow the Sixers, Eagles and Flyers as well as collegiate stuff, too.

To be honest, I miss the small market Phillies team. It gave me sort of a sense of pride knowing they could compete with almost all home-grown players. The team now has mostly home-grown players, but they have thrown money at Type A players, and that overshadows that factor. Now, we are constantly being called the Yankees of the NL, and that’s not a title to be proud of unless it’s about championships.

What? Why wouldn’t you be proud that your team is successful enough that it can afford to keep its homegrown players and pick up expensive free agents? Why is there shame in that?

Second, for the VAST majority of the time the Phillies were a small-market team they weren’t competing in any positive way. Maybe if they were lucky they could eek out a 3rd place finish in the division, but their average finish in the division for the 24 seasons from 1984 through 2006 was 3.6th, with one post-season appearance. Go back to that quarter-century of ineptitude just to say we’re homegrown? No thanks.